Scary math!

This is the first year that I've really had a long term steady full time job. At the same time, I've moved back in with my parents, I've paid off my car, and I don't have student loans. (Yes, now I'm just bragging.) Basically, I have more money than I know what to do with and it's wonderful! I've been working on saving but I've also been spending a lot of money on hockey-related expenses.

Earlier today I was wondering how much I've actually spent this season on hockey. I'm a little scared to total this up but I've made a lot of notes on a piece of paper right now and I will be chronicling my reaction as it happens...

Okay, first we'll start with the merchandise section. This season I have purchased the following:

Toledo Walleye Tshirt - $18
Toledo Walleye Sweatshirt - $40
Toledo Walleye Jersey - $105
Phil Kessel Tshirt - $20
Toronto Maple Leafs Jersey - $200 (To be fair, I way overpaid because it was at a charity auction. Obviously, it doesn't cost that much normally but it's still what I paid.)
Capitals Hat - $24 (You can't buy my hat online? Awesome.)
Ovechkin Tshirt - $40
H2H Tshirt - $18

For a grand total of.......... $465! The scary thing is that I was considering getting a new jersey (haha, New Jersey) before H2H. I may be rethinking that considering that it would put me over the $500 just on hockey apparel this season.

OH NO! I bought a tshirt at the Hockey Hall of Fame for $15. Adding that to the total, I'm now at $480 for hockey merchandise.

Okay, next are the miscellaneous costs...

H2H Preparty Ticket - $20
H2H Donation - $27 (40-13=$27. Hank and Pavel.)
Hockey Hall of Fame ticket - $15
My share of the hotel in Toronto - $90
My share of the hotel in DC - $70
Gas and tolls to Toronto - $60 (estimated since we stopped by Rochester on the way...)
Gas and tolls to DC - $70

I am positive that there are more but these are the big ones that I can think of right now. They add up to a grand total of......... $352!

Next up is a very scary category. I am going to attempt to add up how much money I've spent on beer... I really shouldn't try this but I'm going to anyway.

I know that in Toronto, I spent approximately $16 on beer.
I know that in DC, I spent $24 on beer at the game, another $10 on beer at the bar and then $9 in shots at the bar for a DC total of $43.
At Red Wings games (so far) I've just had $8.
I have attempted to count up how many beers I've had at Walleye games and I believe the number is $136 worth but that could be a low estimate. Dear Lord.

This bring my current beer total up to........ $203. God, stadium beer is expensive.

And now, the part that I fear will be the worst. How much money have I spent on hockey tickets total?

My Toronto ticket was $70.
My Caps ticket was $80.
My Red Wings preseason ticket was $25 but I had to buy both because my bro doesn't have a job (because he's still just a kid) so I spent $50.
My H2H ticket is like $35.
My Red Wings/Ottawa ticket was $90.
My Red Wings/Nashville ticket is $150. (Although, to be fair, I'm not paying for it because SB is awesome.)
The amount that I have spent on Walleye tickets is $390 (including the upcoming regular season games that haven't happened yet but we have tickets to.)
The total that I have spent on hockey tickets this season is......... $865!!!!!!!! (Including the RW/Nash game)

So the grand total of this hockey season, so far, is..... drumroll please.....

1900 fucking dollars.

Dude. That. Is. Awesome.
You know what's scary about that?
It's not even the playoffs yet!

I have playoff Walleye tickets to buy, maybe some Red Wings playoff tickets to buy. I want a Franzen jersey. I want this other Walleye tshirt. And I want to go to the Nashville/Blues game on April 10th.

Oh my God, I have an addiction.

Dear DC, You Win.

Today while commenting on one of my favorite Red Wings blogs, The Production Line, I was reminded that maybe one day, I will have a 300th post. And I realized that that could never happen if I didn't get off my ass and write about my trip to Washington DC.

So, first of all, let me provide a list of reasons why I haven't written anything in over 2 weeks:

1 - I started a new job and I've been tired from adapting to a new sleep schedule.
2 - My laptop is broken.
3 - I'm still hungover from the DC trip.

Pick any reason and it's partially to blame. Yes, I have a new job. Yes, I'm sleepy. Yes, my laptop is DEAD. Yes, I think I'm still dehydrated. I have the dreaded 2 week hangover.

How did I get so hungover, you ask? Well kids, this will be a tale of what not to do when traveling and drinking. There's a reason that SB's photo album on Facebook is called, "Nobody roadtrips like we roadtrip." Because nobody roadtrips like we roadtrip.

I left Ohio around noon on Friday to end up in DC around 8pm. I was heckled for driving slow the entire damn time but I wasn't in a rush because SB's bus wouldn't even be getting to town until like 10pm. So I made it, SB then made it in town and we ordered a ton of room service. We got in a fight with the room service lady over a cup of bleu cheese dressing. We take our bleu cheese very seriously. It was a staple in our apartment last year and it's almost like a food group for us. After our cheese fix, we called it a night with a small glass of Jameson and some crappy reality tv.

The next morning, we decided to walk the National Mall. Our hotel was right by the Capitol Building so we started there, walked past the Washington Monument and all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial. Then we walked over to the White House, past the Verizon Center and back to the hotel. On the way, we stopped at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. It is rumored that I cried a little bit. I can neither confirm or deny this but I will say that space is the most terrifying thing EVER and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable to think about. Maybe even so uncomfortable that I would cry. (Think about it: it's so freaking big and we don't even understand so much about it. It's like mind-boggling huge and there are people that routinely go up in space, say goodbye to their families and not know if they're ever going to return. On top of that, I started thinking about the Cold War and how the astronauts of the 60s were really American heroes and OHMYGOD SPACE IS OVERWHELMING!!!!)

Some shuttle-y thingy. It was TINY and SCARY.

After a small lunch at 11:30am (trust me, this is important) consisting of McDonald's small fries and a few chicken nuggets, we continued on our journey. After a stop at a Starbucks and a stop at H&M, we headed back to the hotel for drinking. It was 4pm. The plan was to leave for the game at 5:15 so that left 75 minutes to begin drinking our faces off.

Now, I'm not new to heavy drinking (heyyyyyyy, that sounds bad) so I should know that Jameson should not be a "pre-gaming" drink but when you're on vacation in another town, who cares about smart decisions, right? So we drank and drank and drank...

Canada Dry is the best chaser. Trust me.



This picture should be hint #1 that we're drunk.



Yes, that's a pillow fort. Why do you ask?

...for 75 minutes. In that time, we consumed a total of a half liter of Jameson. Keep in mind, we had only eaten a few chicken nuggets and small fries. We did some shots and walked over to the Verizon Center. On the way, SB suggested that we have a Leslie Hat Trick at the game. For those of you that don't know, which is 95% of you, a Leslie Hat Trick is something terrible that I invented. At some point in time when I was drunk, I thought, "Hey, there are 3 periods in a hockey game. If I drink 3 large beers during this time, it'll be a hat trick of beer. A Leslie Hat Trick." I tried and tried to convince SB that this was a bad plan. I was still saying no even as I was purchasing the beer.

The beer vendor at the VC asked if I wanted lids for the beer. I found this hilarious (hint #2 that I was already wasted) so of course I said yes. I then spent the next 10 minutes running around trying to find a straw because that would make it even better, right? Apparently drinking alcohol out of a straw makes your body absorb it faster? This is what I've heard. With the amount of alcohol I drank, it's hard to tell.

In the first, we each drank a large beer. In the second, we each drank a large beer. Halfway through the third, SB said, "Dude, I need the assist!" and hit my leg. At this time she handed me her beer and I apparently drank it. Drink count at the end of the game: SB had 2 glasses of Jameson, 1 shot of Jameson and 90 oz of beer. I had 2 glasses of Jameson, 2 shots of Jameson and 126 oz. of beer.

The game ended. Caps won. A good time was had by all. We got up and stopped at the bathroom on our way out of the arena. When I emerged from the bathroom, I found SB really confused standing on the concourse. She then tells me that she has lost her jacket and just asked a random stranger with brown hair where her coat was. We went back to the seats to look for it; we went back in the bathroom to look for it. We ended up at Guest Services who told us to go back upstairs because they had it there. Then we ended up fighting with a guy who wouldn't let us up the escalator and we FREAKED out. Eventually, we got the coat back and headed to the bar.

We were beyond wasted and, once outside, SB asked the cops where to find the bar. They were very nice and told us and then warned us not to jaywalk because they would write us tickets. In retrospect, they probably should have arrested us for public intoxication rather than warning us about jaywalking but whatevs.

We went to Rocket Bar because it was recommended to us. What I remember of it was good, although I really only remember doing horrible at skee-ball. When we went in, I immediately bought us more beer for some reason. Then, before we left, I thought it would be BRILLIANT to do a shot of my absolute favorite, Liquid Cocaine.

Luckily, we ended up at a Ruby Tuesday's 5 minutes later and ended up ordering half of the appetizer menu. This helped us not completely die. The rest of the night is pretty hazy. I do know that we took most of the appetizers back to the hotel in boxes. Once back in the hotel, SB laid down on the floor in the bathroom while I removed my shirt and began "cleaning" the hotel room. (I use the word "cleaning" loosely because the room was a complete mess in the morning.) This is also when I left many drunk voicemails for my friends, including screaming for 2 minutes and using a "Canadian accent" and referring to myself as Mike Babcock. (When I drink, I turn Canadian!)

The next morning was ROUGH. Honestly, I hadn't been that hungover since freshman year of college. We were able to get an extended checkout from the front desk and if we hadn't, I think I would've died.

We spent most of the morning putting together the pieces of the previous night via tweets, texts, phone calls, receipts and random items we found in our hotel room. I guess I should have prefaced this story by saying that this is just what I believe happened but who really knows?

And you're probably wondering where all of the really important hockey pictures are. They're right here!

If you click on the pictures, it'll take you to the album on photobucket. It's not organized and it's not pretty but there are more pictures there. So my goal for this week is to actually write more and maybe even have a HBOTW sometime this weekend. See, I slacked so much that now it's time for another hockey game already. SB is flying here on Saturday and we're taking in a Red Wings game on Saturday night. It will be the first time she's ever been to Joe Louis Arena.

I will repeat that because it's such a strange fact: This Saturday will be the first time little SB has ever been to Joe Louis Arena. I just can't fathom that. I'm honored to accompany her to her first game in Detroit and I'm even more excited that I got lower bowl seats for under face value! Seriously, I promise to update about it and it won't take 2 weeks!

PS- The title refers to a short hungover verbal letter that I wrote to Washington DC that Sunday morning. "Dear DC, You kicked my ass but you were fun and totally worth it. I promise I'll be back but for now, you win. Love, ME!"